


A Study of Demyx

by TrenchWarfare



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Demyx centric, Gen, If you consider Demyx fading away dying, Merpeople
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 09:17:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5534423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrenchWarfare/pseuds/TrenchWarfare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Demyx doesn’t really know how to stop moving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Study of Demyx

Demyx doesn’t really know how to stop moving.

He thinks it might be something leftover from his time with a heart. It’s not really possible to stay still in the ocean. His tail was always working to keep him from drifting with the pull of the sea, and even when it wasn’t, he couldn’t resist being pulled along with the currents.

It’s almost disconcerting being expected to stay still now. It feels wrong and it takes all of his concentration. Most of the time he doesn’t bother.

Saix has long since stopped admonishing him for his leg bouncing incessantly during meetings. Larxene has stopped asking him not to play his sitar in the common areas, because she learned the hard way what happens if Demyx doesn’t have something to occupy his hands with for too long. (Let’s just say, the water damage was pretty much irreversible and that wing will probably be cordoned off for the rest of all of their existences.)

Axel has taken to joining in whenever Demyx plays around with his powers, lazily twisting his fingers through the air, making water dance across his vision. The addition of Axel’s fire has turned it into more of a game than an absent-minded thing that Demyx doesn’t even always realize he’s doing.

-

Sometimes Demyx wonders.

This isn’t to say that he isn’t always thinking. Xigbar has sneered at him countless times because he thinks that Demyx’s lack of action is a result of his lack of mind, but it’s really quite the opposite. Demyx is always thinking instead of acting. He doesn’t see the point in wasting his energy on something without fully thinking it through. Most things he doesn’t deem worthy of action.

Sometimes though, he wonders. And for a nobody, wondering is a dangerous thing.

He wonders about his family, back home, if they think he’s dead. He wonders if they had a funeral for him, if they cried in that strange way that merfolk cry.

He wonders what it would be like to have a tail again, if he would still be able to do the tricks that always impressed his little sister, or if he also lost the ability to swim when he died.

Sometimes he wonders if being back in Atlantica would help kickstart his dead heart.

-

The first thing Demyx did when he became a nobody was try to swim.

He had woken up on one of the few shores in Atlantica, with legs that looked so alien when they were attached to his own waist. He didn’t immediately realize what he was, he didn’t know that something fundamental within him was missing completely.

As soon as he could stand without falling over, he flung himself back into the ocean. Instead of relief, he felt fear when he realized that he didn’t know how to swim with legs. He was clumsy with them, kicking himself repeatedly. He was pulled under the waves and only his new affinity with the water element kept him from drowning.

Later, when Zexion found him laying on the sand, staring unblinking at the dark water, he didn’t put up much of a fight. All it took was the promise of being able to swim again for Demyx to go with him.

-

A tail isn’t the only thing Demyx lost with his heart. Merfolk are famous for their singing voices, but when Demyx became a nobody, his singing voice went raspy and off-key.

Demyx didn’t know how to live without music. He couldn’t remember a single day in his life when he wasn’t surrounded by other merfolk singing, backed by a live band of sea creatures.

One of his first solo missions was in Port Orleans and it took him probably three times too long to complete it because he met a man named Naveen there who taught him how to play guitar.

It became one of his favorite worlds to visit after that, because the music, while completely different from Atlantica’s, was still at least present.

-

Demyx remembers what being immersed in water feels like. He remembers how it made his chest light with laughter. He remembers _feeling_.

His life on Atlantica was easy, he never suffered anything more than a teenaged heartbreak. So if everything he feels now is just a memory, then why does it hurt a hundred times more than that?

His chest twists painfully and tears prick at his eyes. He shouldn’t have come here, he knows this, but he can’t tear himself away from the ocean.

Again, he finds himself wondering what his family is doing miles below him, if they miss him.

He thought that not having a heart would make him numb. That’s what Axel used to say, with a wistful look at Saix, until the new kid came along. But Demyx saw the way Axel looked at Roxas. He saw how he fought to bring him back, how he’s still fighting to bring him back.

Him and Axel, they’re not numb.

-

Demyx doesn’t want to fight Sora. He doesn’t think it will bring Roxas back, but everyone else seems to think it will at least help.

Sora was nice to him in the Underworld, giving him the Olympus stone so he could regain enough energy to leave.

He considers defecting when they give him the orders. Axel seems to be doing fine on his own. Maybe they could join forces. Two heads are better than one, right? But then, Xigbar pulls him aside and lists everyone who died at Castle Oblivion; Marluxia, Larxene, Vexen, Lexaeus, Zexion.

“Sora killed all of them. Even if he didn’t do it directly, he caused their deaths. Don’t they deserve to be avenged?”

And Demyx thinks about Zexion, how he was only 18, how they used to play Twister together. He thinks about how he and Larxene used to go on missions together a lot, her lightning making his water even more lethal. He thinks about Lexaeus teaching him how to fight. About Vexen never complaining about Demyx’s restlessness. About Marluxia letting Demyx water his flowers.

And he gets angry.

Demyx doesn’t try to kill Sora, he just wants to show him that nobodies have hearts, because he knows that now. His anger is proof enough of that. He just wants to make Sora regret.

When he’s fading away, he can’t hold back the wail of loss he’s been holding in ever since he woke up on that beach.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a cute drabble about Demyx's ADHD, but instead this happened. I'm so sorry. 
> 
> This is for Katlyn, a.k.a. demyxfucker999. Merry Christmas!


End file.
